Monday, November 17, 2014

I have had more things to do than at the moment, but not quite the sensation of everything converging into one big due date. That would be Wednesday!

We started moving into the new library last week. We have to be out of our temporary space by Wednesday, but we're still operating full-bore *while* we move. It's sort of crazy-making.

November 1 was last day for 2015 Odyssey award submissions, so I've been listening like a madwoman, and probably will be until that award announcement at Midwinter. I also started listening to Serial over the weekend, and all I can say is that committee work has ruined me for NPR and radio reporting forever.

I didn't make the trek to the YALSA Lit Symposium in Austin this past weekend. It's the first one I've missed, but the airlines weren't being accommodating. But I 'm headed out Wednesday, to National Harbor outside D.C. for our USBBY board meeting Thursday and then to hang out until ALAN Monday and Tuesday. So, irony of ironies, I'll be moved into the new library, but not able to get things fine-tuned until after Thanksgiving...

Last weekend, I celebrated the end of the doctoral stuff with a little fire. I burned all my survey instruments. It was quite cathartic.

Meanwhile, I'm refreshing at the queue for the university reader pretty much all the time, since that's the very last thing before my degree posts and I get a raise! I'm number 109, but they've plowed through 20 or so in a couple of days, so I have hope that will happen soon.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Last year, I bought a Pebble watch. I liked the fact it worked with iOS as well as Android and was a Kickstarter project. At around $100, it seemed a bargain. Little did I know, I might had made a smartest decision re wearable technology.

The Pebble is open to developers. At first, I was all about the watch faces. I love the German language version in particular. There are apps which you can use to trigger your camera, compass application which tell you what direction you are headed in, a Magic 8 ball app for portents. You can use eight apps at a time.

With my Pebble, I became a total convert to the wristwatch. If I was waiting for a text or a call, I could put away my phone. My buzzing little wrist would alert me. You can get really granular with what triggers alerts on your phone, which then sends them to your wrist to make it work for you. There were some mis-steps -- the time I accidentally started playing Ella Fitzgerald when I was trying to check the time in the middle of a standardized test comes to mind. But it is amazing how liberating this tool, which has the potential to be a shackle, actually is in practice.

What everyone always wants to know: the fitness apps. A couple of years ago, everyone was about little digital bracelet pedometers. I have friends who are always checking their FitBits or Fuelbands. Frankly, I wasn't curious, and I only just downloaded the My Steps fitness app with the Apple announcements. I learned that I walk more than I thought I did, especially at home.

Several people have asked me if I'm going to buy the Apple watch. But I feel like I am charging this eink one all the time, and the battery predictions of the Apple are pretty dire at a quarter to a fifth the life per charge of my Pebble. It almost makes me want one of those Rolexes that winds itself from your wrist motions.